


A Right to Find Those People Creepy

by dancinbutterfly



Series: Justified [6]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: All triggering issues are discussed not shown, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Deputy US Marshal, Alternate Universe - Law Enforcement, Alternate Universe - Lawyers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Billy Loves Movies, Conspiracy, Evil Corporations, Faraday is totally an 80s kid, First Meetings, Friendship, Goody Just Loves Billy, Human Trafficking, Idiots in Love, Love, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Plans For The Future, References to Billy's in-fic history and all that implies, Talking, Teamwork, Trust, Waffle House: A Southern Gothic, they're both such assholes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 14:53:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11315724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: Faraday has a meeting with two very dangerous men in Dallas to talk about a very dangerous organization while they moon over each other like fifteen year olds fresh out of the backseat of their parents minivan.Holy shit, he hates his life so much sometimes. So fucking much.There isn't enough whiskey on planet earth to make up for the shit he has to put up with.





	A Right to Find Those People Creepy

**Author's Note:**

> Faraday again. Turns out, AUSA Joshua Faraday is my most favoritest outsider POV in all the land. Who would have thunk it! 
> 
> I spent a ridiculously amazing 2 weeks in Alaska and so you will probably see a lot of shit in the future that comes from stuff I learned up there. But now I'm back and barring some kind of chaos, I'll be back on a roll. Missed you all! *smooches*

> **Raylan Givens:** I figure people have a right to their hobbies and I have a right to find those people creepy.
> 
> \- Justified 1.06 _The Collection_

* * *

 

Faraday has somehow ended up at a meeting, at 9 in the fucking morning, in the fucking heart of the Oak Lawn gayborhood (a solid 2 and a half hour drive from his cozy, sturdy little brick house outside of Tyler), at a fucking Waffle House, on a _Saturday_ with two very dangerous men, to talk about a very dangerous organization. On top of being forced to deal with the in the noisy crush of the breakfast rush and the pervasive stickiness that seems to be a constant in Waffle Houses nation wide, he's stuck across from this freaking SpecOps sniper turned Fed and his boyfriend the "alleged" renownedly vicious, terrifyingly competent knife-wielding revenge killer (who, seriously, is a fucking ghost to the FBI in the form of a single, decade old crime scene surveillance picture the locals caught on pure luck and a bit of forensic evidence Faraday would never take to a Grand Jury because in court it's barely enough to tie it together as serial let alone get an indictment against an even moderately competent defense) as they moon over each other like fifteen year olds fresh out of the backseat of a parent's minivan for the first time. 

He could have been asleep right now in an alternate reality and then he could've gotten up and played fucking Elder Scrolls and maybe smoked a bowl to get over this trauma (he hasn't been drug tested since he got promoted to AUSUA so he could get away with it). Instead? This.

Holy shit, he hates his life so much sometimes. So fucking much. 

No, there is not enough whiskey on planet Earth to make up for the shit he has to put up with. Especially the fact that he has to be in a Waffle House sober. Somehow that's the worst thing about this situation.

“A Waffle House?” Faraday asks again, looking around the dingy space and the crowd that had, just, way too many children in it. “Seriously. The entire Dallas-Ft. Worth area to choose from and your boy picks a Waffle House to meet in.”

Goodnight smiles. “No wifi, only one camera,” He jerks his chin at the small round camera in the far corner. Then tilts his head to the standard floor to ceiling windows. “It’s got good visibility of the parking lot, only one entrance for customers, but you can still sit with your back to the wall. Plus, it’s got some sentimental value.”

Faraday looks around and finds that yeah, that’s true. Goodnight is also seated cross from him on the side of the booth directly against the wall with a clear line of sight both to the door and of the kitchen where the employee exit was. Faraday hadn’t even considered any of those factors let alone the angles required to get this kind of spot.

“This sort of shit is why I don’t play pool with you anymore.”

Goodnight grins at him, his gold crown glinting in the light. The VA apparently wasn’t shelling out for porcelain whenever he’d gotten the work done back then. It worked on him, especially in this part of the room. “At least you know your limits.”

Faraday is about to say something, something witty and cutting and perfectly timed, but Goodnight’s face changes so drastically so quickly that it dies in his mouth. Goodnight is smiling, bright, gleaming, all the way up to his eyes and down into his shoulders and spine changing the very way he’s holding himself. Faraday never even noticed how tightly the man held himself before because he’s never seen him this loose.

He watches Goodnight get to his feet and hold out a hand to the Korean man who approaches their table. He looks like he’s just found Jesus, glassy eyed and goddamn _saved_ as they don’t shake so much as grip hands and just…hold for a long second. Faraday has accidentally walked in on couples fucking that were less intimate than that.

“Hey.” Faraday says awkwardly as they slide into the booth. Goodnight doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arm around the man (Goodnight’s boyfriend, the goddamn Assassin, fuck) in a casual yet wholly intentional sort of way. “Joshua Faraday, Assistant US Attorney. You can call me whatever.”

“Billy,” the Assassin says. “You can call me Billy.”

“Be nice,” Goodnight hisses. “He’s doing us a favor, a big one.”

Billy rolls his eyes.

“So, Billy,” Faraday reaches into his pocket for his phone. “I’m off the clock but if I could take an audio of this, that’d be helpful. I’ll put it up on the cloud, make sure that it’s accessible and that if what you’re saying is true, nothing we do can get us killed because we’re the only ones who have it. Sound good?”

“Not really,” Billy says drolly. “You should put your phone in your car. Your laptop too.” He scratches the hint of beard bristling on his chin. “You’d be amazed what people can do with the right open source programming and a decent budget.”

“You always did like computers, mon vainqueur,” Goodnight says, sounding surprised and delighted. “When did you learn this?”

Billy shrugs. “Once the millennium rolled over, a lot of libraries updated and most don’t need you to have a library card to use the computer. If you do a halfway decent search or read the right book, you can learn anything. Once you figure out the basics, it’s just question of whether you want to take the blue or red pill.”

Goodnight looks at Billy like he shit out roses and rainbows. It’s disgusting.

Worse, is the way Billy smiles backs and ducks his head - looking something more than grim for the first time since he walks in the door. He’s gone all sweet-eyed, pleased and fucking bashful. This man had left a string of bodies in his wake and he was looking shy and fawning over being praised for learning some goddamn javascript.

Faraday is terrified of them both at this moment. He tries to desperately keep the conversation on track. “You decided to see how far the rabbit hole goes, huh?”

Billy shrugs again. He can communicate a lot with a simple up and down of his shoulder. This one says “I can probably make you regret we ever met” with just an inch of movement. Faraday’s skin crawls. Goodnight looks like he wants to eat his face off right here in this bastion of Southern banality.

“Something like that.”

Goody beams and then, holy shit, lifts Billy’s hand to his mouth, in the middle of a fucking restaurant in front of the gloriously country waitresses, cook staff, and diners. Republican one and all. He kisses his knuckles before turning his hand over and pressing his lips to his palm before holding it to his cheek. “You keep me in constant awe, mon vainqueur.”

“We’re in fucking Texas, guys.”

“Please, Joshua,” Goody drawls, still looking at Billy. “We’re in Dallas. There’s a difference.”

Faraday drops his face into his hands. He hears the squeak of sneakers on the linoleum as the waitress approaches.

“Welcome to Waffle House. I’m Rhonda. What can I get to start y’all to drink?”

“Coffee, with side of milk, if you please, miss.”

“Miss,” Rhonda chuckles. “Honey, I know you can tell I ain’t been a miss in thirty years years.”

Goodnight does something non-verbal that makes her chuckle and Faraday pretends he doesn’t hear it. Assholes, all of them.

“And for you?” Rhonda asks.

“I’ll have water and a cherry coke.”

“And…uh, honey,” she asks him, her drawl all Texas syrup and sweetness, “Are you all right?

“Jack and Coke hold the Coke?” Faraday pleads, not lifting his head.

“He’ll have coffee too.” Goodnight says over him.

“And all the bacon,” Faraday groans. “I just want all the bacon.”

“I gotcha, honey.” She pats his head and he feels long fingernails on his scalp before her shoes squeak away.

When she’s gone a raspy laugh erupts and Faraday looks up. Billy is laughing at him. It changes his, well, his everything - the set of his face and the line of his shoulders and the danger in his eyes. Billy transforms completely as he laughs into a man that is someone inviting and warm and all at once, Faraday finally can see the guy his friend is in love with.

He really didn’t want to see that guy. If he couldn’t see him, then he couldn’t empathize, without empathy he could stay detached, casual, joking and distant. But oh no, all of a sudden Billy’s real, Velveteen Rabbit style, and Faraday is so very fucked.

He drags his hand over his face in defeat and slides out of the booth. “Right. I’m going to go dump my shit in my car and grab some paper. You guys got anything you want me to take out for you?”

“No,” Billy says shortly with a quirk to the corner of his lips and a tilt of his head that says ‘we would never be stupid enough to bring in that kind of risk in the first place, dumbass.’

“We won’t eat your food while you’re gone, mon frer,” Goodnight says with a grin. “So don’t you worry.” Yeah. Because that’s what he’s worried about at this point.

He jogs out to the parking lot and drops his shit off in the trunk because Goodnight is right. This _is_ Dallas, not the rest of Texas and while you can leave your shiny new MacBook on the driver’s seat in burbs of East Texas, you can’t do it so much in the metro area.

While he’s there, Faraday pulls out the stuff Agent Cullen sent over from the Bureau. He’d waited until he got home to even open the email she sent him because while he’s got pretty fucking high security clearance at work, he also doesn’t trust anyone in his office any farther than he can throw them. Oh, they’re good people. They’re also all trying to make their career and get the hell out of Tyler and he can’t risk fucking up the life of a friend and innocent children over some petty shit like office politics.

So he’d waited until after hours, downloaded the files on his home computer and printed them as hard copies before transferring everything to a USB and deleting it all before locking it away in a safe he kept under the sink in his laundry room. It was a heavy, ugly old monster that wasn’t built for hiding so much as security and also held his mom’s favorite necklace, his first deck of cards, the tooth he knocked out of that stabby dickbag’s mouth when he tried to come find them after he got out of jail, the scholarship letter from UT Law, and a small messenger bag with two pairs of clothes(one of them perfectly acceptable should he need to go anywhere from a deposition to the Pentagon), a copy of his gun permit, his .45, and about a thousand dollars in cash.

He’s never needed anything in his go-bag but the clothes, thank fuck. Still, when a kid grows up where they would come home Friday and be enrolled in a new school three hundred miles away on Monday morning, they got used to keeping the most important shit in their lives packed and ready to go, just in case. He hasn’t left Texas since he graduated, has lived in his house in Tyler for almost five years now, the longest he’s lived everywhere. He’s still a big believer in always being prepared to move fast. He’s got another bag just like it (albeit with a significantly smaller gun) hidden beneath the spare tire.

It’s also why he has the files now when he was going to wait to talk about them with Goodnight and his boy later.

Preparation’s the key to every case he’s ever won, to every trick he’s ever pulled off, to every game he cheated. You have to pack your parachute correctly before you jump out of a plane if you want to land on your feet and not die splattered on the ground right? Right. So. Same thing. Better to have the files from the Feeb with him when he needed them, rather than need them and end up a metaphorical splatter painting.

Sighing, he grabs the box (because there’s a fucking box worth of files, so many pages that he’d had to buy a new packages of printer paper and three black ink cartridges to get it all printed and Agent Cullen’s email said that this wasn’t enough to make a real investigation out of, what the actual fuck) and heads back inside. He’s feeling grumpy, goddamn surly even, until he rounds the corner back to the booth and finds Goodnight and Billy with their heads tilted towards each other. Billy says something that makes Goodnight so loud that the whole Waffle House turns to look. Billy gestures vaguely at him with his fork, a stubborn piece of egg clinging to the tines and says something else Faraday can’t hear only for Goodnight to smack him fairly hard on the shoulder.

“-such an asshole, cher, you really are.”

“You like it.”

Goodnight doesn’t argue as Faraday drops the files onto the table. He doesn’t say anything in fact, just snatches the fork from Billy’s hand, pops the egg in his mouth, and then places the fork back in his deadly hands exactly as they had been. It kinda reminds Faraday of JD and Turk from Scrubs, actually, but with no Carla. Yeah. He will never be able to watch reruns of that show the same way again, goddamn them both.

“Yeah, this is definitely not enough bacon.” There are only four strips on the plate in front of his seat. Insufficient.

“When Rhonda saw you’d left she wanted to make sure it wouldn’t get soggy. You just give her a wave and she’ll throw the rest on.”

Glancing over at the kitchen visible behind the low bar and high countertops, Faraday sees can’t see the fabled cook but there is a teenage waitress at the far side of the restaurant stacking American cheese slices with a look of contempt on her face the likeness of which is probably carved in stone somewhere in the Yucatan, a waiter making coffee who is maybe ten years younger than him and would be hot in a young Will Smith kinda way it weren’t for the sad attempt at a beard, and a waitress with penciled on eyebrows that were too dark for her white skin and straight, dishwater hair pulled up into a neat bun who could only be Rhonda.

Rhonda was totally bangable but older than he was, a handsome woman who could have passed for an extremely rough thirty-five and a nubile sixty. She was oddly ageless in that way some people in more desperate places become when the markers of time are wiped away and replaced with a general strain that lingers in stasis for decades before changing suddenly and drastically into those of old age.

His mom was frozen like that, somewhere in that lost landscape that is adulthood but not middle age, right up until she got old. Then she sputtered out like a fucking used match, tired and wrinkled and used up.

Yeah, he doesn’t need bacon that badly.

“Whatever. You guys ready to work or do you need to go fuck this out of your system first? Because there’s a bathroom right back there and I can wait.” Faraday watches them cast glances at each other before they start laughing, albeit Billy laughs around forkfuls of food. He frowns, feeling left out of the joke. He fucking hates that feeling. “What?”

“I’m afraid you had to be there,” Goodnight chuckles. “Please proceed.”

“Fine. So. North Pacific Multinational. I couldn’t find shit on it but I got a hit on some of the shell companies you gave me.” He pulls the top two files out. “These are our big ones, Gold Standard Shipping was supposed to be in New York except for how it didn’t exist and Rose Creek Incorporated in Miami which was headed by the late Gavin Harp, CEO.” He flips the file open to a grey haired main with desperate eyes and an unpleasant expression. “He was found in pieces in a landfill in Broward County last month.”

Goodnight makes a small noise humming noise. Billy just continues to shovel food in his mouth like it could be taken away from him.

“That’s it? No color commentary from the peanut gallery? Because if you don’t give me something to work with, I can’t go to the AG for a deal, okay? Not won’t. Can’t.” He gives his friend and colleague a glare. “Despite appearances I’m not actually magic.”

“Oh fuck you.”

“He made us call him Sheriff,” Billy says suddenly. “He liked to be the boss, shot a girl in the arm once because she pushed him away. Pretty, big eyes, from Florida too.” He pops another bite of egg in his mouth before continuing. “He’s the one who moved me and my sister from the apartment in Chicago to the casino hotel in Vegas.” That bit he says directly to Goody, like he’s picking up a very old story because Goodnight nods like he knows exactly what Billy is talking about. “I was fifteen I think? Maybe sixteen? I don’t know. Trailers for Aliens were on TV all the time. Oh.” He snaps his fingers around his utensils. “And Labyrinth. You know, muppets, Bowie,” he explains looking directly at Faraday, like there’s anyone alive over the age of twenty-five _hasn’t_ seen Labyrinth. “ **‘Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child you stole from me. For my will is as strong as yours and my kingdom is as great. You have no power over me.’** Yeah. Love that one.”

Faraday gapes at him. “Seriously. Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Billy.”

Goodnight snorts into his coffee, his free hand coming up to caress the back of Billy’s neck.

“Right.” Faraday scratches this down on a legal pad he pulls out of the box. “So sometime between 1985 and 1987, he trafficked you.”

“And raped me.” Billy agreed with no emotion. “Our keepers liked to make sure we never said no. They weren’t picky. Hole’s a hole.”

Faraday’s heard worse, far worse, from witnesses and in confessions before. Sucks every time though and even knowing what Billy’s done it still hits hard. He can take it without flinching but Goodnight does. Faraday doesn’t blame him. Goodnight loves the guy. If it were his mom talking about something like this? He’d flinch too.

“Okay. So that’s why you killed him?”

“I don’t think said that.”

Faraday was going to take that as a yes.

“How’d you get from Miami to here?”

“I never said I was in Miami.” Billy points out.

“Right but if you were going to travel from say, Florida to Texas, how would you do it?”

“I’ve got a bike and I hustle for cash when I need it.”

Faraday does not look at Billy’s mouth, or his face at all. Cops are pretty damn good at reading people and he does not need Goodnight to know he’s picturing his boyfriend sucking dick for cash, even involuntarily, as he scribbles down more notes. “Okay. And what brought you to Texas?”

“I got a Google alert. Blackstone Limited was buying up some port concerns in Beaumont.” Billy turns and smiles at Goodnight. “I ran into a friend and got slowed down before I could find the signing in Dallas.”

“A friend.”

“Kirk to my Spock.”

Goodnight laughed at that, hard and loud.“Really?” Billy doesn’t even give the slightest blink in response. “You think you’re Spock? You?”

Faraday’s with the Marshall on this one. “Yeah, sorry, but Spock isn’t the one who left behind a righteous trail of bodies in his wake.”

“It is righteous,” Goodnight growls.

“Well I’m a Next Gen guy and Picard always needed a little more to work off than the first crew did. So I’m going to need you to tell me everything you know. At the beginning. How did you know where to start?”

“There was a company name all over the warehouse we were first held in when we were smuggled into the US. Didn’t speak the language but when that’s the first thing you see when you escaped with your life into enemy territory you remember it. Found out it was still out there being used in connection with someone who worked us. Picked up the trail from there. It’d probably be best to make you a flowchart but I can write you a list and explain it to you if you want.”

"Annotated maybe?" Goodnight adds and Billy nods.

"But not until I can walk him through it, all the way through, once."

Faraday sighs and digs through the box again. He likes to think of it a bit like his bag of tricks, full of useful things for any improv move he might need. In this case, he magically produces a second legal pad, pens in black, blue, red and green, and a thick black Sharpie. “Go ahead. Take me through it, from the beginning.”

“Which beginning.”

“As far back as you can remember.”

“Okay.” Billy grabs the pad and, interestingly, the green pen. He sketches out what looks like some lines and circles then draws a box around it. “My parents were mid-level officials for Kim Il-Sun’s government in the 80s and when I was about thirteen, they told me and my sister that they were being asked questions about their allegiance to the Great Leader and we needed to leave. My mother worked in trade regulation with the Chinese and the Soviets and she made the connections, paid the bribes, told my big sister to take care of me, and two days later we were sneaking out in the middle of the night with one bag each over the northern border.”

“And you have ID to back this up?”

Billy shakes his head. “No one had passports in North Korea. Where were we gonna go? Not like we could just leave. Only those the highest party officials could even think about sending their kids to school abroad or doing embassy work. We were a big deal because my mother was allowed to even speak to foreign nationals.” He doesn’t push his plate away but for the first time, he’s stopped eating. “American companies that would do business with communists at the time weren’t particularly moral beacons.”

“And that’s where Northern Pacific comes in?”

“That’s where Shanghai Rapid Shipping comes in. Some guys who said they worked for them picked us up twenty-five miles across the border, drove us to the port of Shanghai, if we gave them the money our parents sent with us and a little extra from Yeon-mi.” Goody’s face makes it clear what the _extra_ was in this situation but Billy doesn’t even pause. “Then we were shoved in a steel shipping container with about fifty other kids and women, mostly Chinese but when we landed in LA, they weren’t really satisfied with just her anymore. Turns out it was never about just her. Everyone in there had a destination, we just refused to let ourselves be separated.”

He draws a few more lines, a few more squares with labels in English this time, for Shanghai Rapid Shipping, Chinese names along the line that might have been what Billy remembered of his smugglers and might be something else, he didn’t stop to explain.

“We were LA-based for the first year? Year and a half? I don’t know. My sister was better at keeping track of time than I was. They kept me fucked up a lot.” He grins at Faraday now. “I was a biter.”

“That’s terrifying.”

“Only if provoked,” Goodnight assures him.

“Boundaries are important,” Billy agrees.

Then they both crack up. They laugh like little kids, as if there is anything at all funny in the recounting of a man’s life as a defector and child sex slave. Faraday was scared of Billy when he walked in the door but he’s never been afraid of Goodnight before this exact moment.

“Right…” He scratches his own neck with his fingernails and glances around for an employee, any employee. This would be easier without all this food detritus on the table. “Can we stop at the child sex ring for a second?”

“I was stuck there years,” Billy muses. “Don’t see the harm in a few minutes.”

Still no smile, no nothing. He tilts his head and stares at the man still tucked casually against his friend. “You know, I can’t tell if I really like you or if you bother the shit out of me.”

“Both?” Billy offers. “Both. Both is good.”

Honest to god, he doesn’t know if it is worse that Billy is quoting the gayest cartoon ever created or Faraday is actually recognizing that Road to El Dorado line. Faraday covers his face with his hand as he waves a hand in Rhonda’s general direction.

“Is this a cry for more bacon, darlin’?” Rhonda asks, petting his hair again. He wishes she would stop. It makes him miss his mom.

“Take it all away,” Faraday pleads. “Save us from ourselves.”

“But we’re all going to need more coffee.”

“Sprite mixed with orange soda for me if you got it, please. Otherwise, I’ll have another of these.”

Faraday has to look up at that, horrified. “What kind of savage are you?”

“The kind who likes drinks that taste like Creamsicles.” Billy replies coolly.

“And you choose to date this guy?” Faraday demands, glaring at Goodnight. Murder and vengeance he can understand. This is an anathema. “Mr. I’m-Going-To-Mix-Soft-Drinks-Willy-Nilly is your first?”

“Only choice,” Goodnight corrects. “Always.”

“Well now that is sweet,” Rhonda sighs. “Wish my husband’d talk like that about me. You got yourself a keeper there kiddo.”

“Yeah, I know.” Billy’s lips quirk as he speak but, for the first time all day, he looks sad, really sad, like he might cry or something. When Rhonda bustles away with the plates, Faraday and Billy go back to the flowchart but it niggles the deeper they go and the uglier the story gets. None of it even scrapes the surface of Billy’s implacable cool.

Yet, over the course of the hours they spend pouring over nitpicky details and hazy timelines blurred by the drugs forced on Billy and long expanses kept with no sense of time, the only time anything about the story seems to bring him down is when he talks about how he found his intel in the 2000s. He casts looks at Goodnight again and again, occasionally dropping his hand below the table or reaching to touch any available skin.

Something got lost in the time that he spent hunting the people who hurt him and his sister, something paradigm-altering and life-changing. The man might be murderous, wiry, asshole movie-buff murder with a terrifying sweet-tooth but Faraday feels worse about the whole situation with every passing expression of longing for missed opportunities that pass between them. Combined with the goddamn nightmare peeling away another layer of the NPMI onion exposes, Faraday finds himself hoping to God or Jesus or the Force or whatever is out there pulling the strings of the universe that he can help make the cost these two paid to get these bastards all worth it.

He got into this whole lawyering gig for justice didn’t he? Or at the very least, to punish the fucking tyranny of evil men, Jules Winfield style (and man, he would lay serious money down that the Assassin in front of him can recite Pulp Fiction by wrote on command). He can’t remember the last time he wanted to nail someone as bad as he wants to crucify anyone associated with these slave-mongering, murdering monsters.

It’d just be nice, if for once, Faraday could do all that with stuff the great vengeance and furious anger, and still be a part of building something beautiful too. He watches Goody press a kiss to Billy’s temple and thinks maybe, maybe this time he’ll manage.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes!: 
>   * Hilariously, I took a dialect test I have been reliably informed is accurate and it turns out my natural dialect is a match for the Dallas/Ft. Worth area (which is also a match for where I actually grew up in N.W. Florida). So turns out, my patterns are colloquially on point!
>   * Dallas is NOT like the rest of Texas. It's just not in the same way Salt Lake City is not the same as the rest of Utah and Atlanta is not like the rest of Georgia. Bastions of liberal thought exist in pits of conservatism and there are fairly large ones in Texas.
>   * Defection from North Korea never ever happens directly into South Korea. Why? Because of the DMZ - the most dangerous fucking place on earth. People will tell you that Afghanistan is more dangerous, or the West Bank/Gaza Strip, or Kashmir but they're wrong. It's the Demilitarized Zone that makes up the border between North and South Korea - 160 miles across from one body of water to another - but only 2.5 miles(4km) wide. Theres a TINY strip of land in a small village on the actual border called the Joint Security Area where North and South Korean military officers basically stand on opposite sides of a concrete line staring at each other going "YOU WANNTA START SOMETHING MOTHERFUCKER? WHAT?" where the UN has troops too. This matters because it means that when people DO defect, they almost ALWAYS go north, through China. China is still communist and has not closed its borders unlike the now capitalist Russia (which sometimes opens its borders but thats for a WHOLE OTHER THING and if you want to talk about the North Korean labor camps in Siberia, come find me on tumblr). When people escape into northern China, they almost always head straight south into Thailand, sometimes into Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos but usually Thailand, South Korea's western neighbor. The situation in recent years has gotten so extreme that people will cross into Thailand knowing they will get arrested and not giving a single flying fuck because Thailand won't send people back to North Korea but will call South Korean agencies working inside Thailand and be like "we have your dudes, come get them we dont want to feed them." Its a ridiculous situation but that's the deal in the '10s
>   * As that relates to Billy, I'm not exactly familiar with how defection would have worked in the 80s, however, relationships between North Korea and their communist neighbors were a lot better and trade was more vibrant back then. The fall of the Iron Curtain is what caused the famine in the 90s to be so dire in the first place instead of a minor problem. Hence why Billy and Yeon-mi left the way they did via partners in China, instead of on their own to face things on their own. On the one hand, slavery. On the other? They might have made it to Thailand and free. So...
>   * Broward County Florida is hell on earth - literally and figuratively. Stay far awy from it. You don't need to go there. Okay? You don't.
>   * Movies quotes: 
>   * For the record, I am not a fan of creamsicles or anything orange-flavored that isnt made with real oranges but I'm fairly sure that Billy pretty much lived on sodas when he got to America. WTF else would their captors get them from motel vending machines?
>   * American libraries are one of the few places where internet access is completely free, where you don't need any ID to enter, and where you can read books without having to buy them and where you can spend hours without being arrested for loitering. In Atlanta, huge numbers of homeless will spend the day in the library to the point where they've had to institute a no-sleeping policy in the downtown branches :D So, while some libraries require you to have a card to use the computer in the US (especially lately) lets pretend that you didn't or that Billy was very good at talking all the librarians he met into giving him access. He's also not wrong about being able to learn to do anything w/Google and some books.
>   * Do not come at me about Star Trek captains. Janeway is my one true captain but there were a lot of reruns for Billy to watch. Sulu was his favorite, even if he was Japanese(Japanese imperialism in Korea. Google it)
>   * This is what a Waffle House looks like inside. I feel like yall need to know. 
> 



End file.
